with a soldier’s genius, prompt to take advantage of the enemy’s discomfiture.  Had reinforcements been sent up in time Spion Kop need never have been abandoned, and Buller might have kept the key to Ladysmith which was then in his hands.  Not another position between him and us remained for the Boers to make a stand on.  He would then have outflanked and made untenable the entrenched heights facing Colenso.  But perhaps he was anxious about his own line of communications.  We only know that he has gone back, and the work accomplished at much sacrifice of life must be done over again from some other point.

January 30.—­In spite of all we know, there are still persistent rumours rosy-hued but all equally improbable.  According to these Kimberley has been relieved, and Lord Roberts is marching on Bloemfontein.  Sir Redvers Buller has retaken Spion Kop.  He has gained a victory at some other point, but where or when nobody knows.  Four hundred Boers are surrounded south of the Tugela with no chance of escape.  A similar rumour reached us weeks ago.  Those four hundred Boers must be getting short of food by this time.  And yet another story makes out that numbers of the enemy attempting to fall upon Buller’s supply column at Skiet’s Drift were completely annihilated.  The Standard and Diggers’ News could hardly beat this for imaginative ingenuity.  It does not reassure us.  On the contrary a general feeling of depression seems to have set in, caused perhaps by the ennervating weather.  A deluge of rain has drenched the land, from which mephitic vapours rise to clog our spirits.  The knowledge that rations are running short may also have some effect.  We have not felt the strain severely yet.  There is no reduction in the issue of meat or bread, but luxuries drop out of the list one by one, and the quantities of tea, sugar, coffee, and similar things diminish ominously.  Vegetables were exhausted long ago, and a daily ration of vinegar has been ordered for every man, whose officer must see that he gets it, as a precaution against scurvy.

February 1.—­It has come at last.  Horseflesh is to be served out for food, instead of being buried or cremated.  We do not take it in the solid form yet, or at least not consciously, but Colonel Ward has set up a factory, with Lieutenant McNalty as managing director, for the conversion of horseflesh into extract of meat under the inviting name of Chevril.  This is intended for use in hospitals, where nourishment in that form is sorely needed, since Bovril and Liebig are not to be had.  It is also ordered that a pint of soup made from this Chevril shall be issued daily to each man.  I have tasted the soup and found it excellent, prejudice notwithstanding.  We have no news from General Buller beyond a heliogram, warning us that a German engineer is coming with a plan in his pocket for the construction of some wonderful dam which is to hold back the waters of the Klip River and flood us out of Ladysmith.